The debate in the California Supreme Court this week about whether schools must provide a licensed school nurse to administer insulin to diabetic schoolchildren comes as the school nursing profession is reeling from job cuts as well as position replacements by part-time licensed vocational nurses and health aides, said Linda Davis-Alldritt, president of the National Association of School Nurses.
“Before Proposition 13, it used to be that just about every school in California had a full-time school nurse,” said Davis-Aldritt, who served as the state school nurse consultant for the California Department of Education from 1996-2012. “Now there are very few.” It is common practice now for a nurse to serve four or five different schools in a district, she said.